


The Murder of Chen Yang

by Jackie Thomas (Jackie_Thomas)



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Case Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 22:29:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3586422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackie_Thomas/pseuds/Jackie%20Thomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They approached me at Cambridge."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Murder of Chen Yang

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes as its starting point James’ comment in The Gift of Promise that he was almost recruited to MI5 while at Cambridge.

The body had been discovered at first light; spotted by a passer-by from the nearby road. Laura said the woman had died in the late evening, though with the temperature falling below zero overnight it was impossible to be precise. 

“It could be natural causes,” she said, having observed no sign of injury beyond some bruising on her wrist. This suggested the well-dressed white woman in her late middle age had not gone willingly to this scrap of wasteland but did not necessarily indicate a violent death. 

The immediate vicinity yielded no clues. The ground was frozen hard and clear of everything except builder’s rubble and rusting lager tins. Uniformed officers searched the area, peered into wheelie bins and rifled through shrubbery but came up with nothing.

There was a shoulder bag with the body and Lewis’ latest sergeant, Tina Field from Swansea, searched it with gloved hands.

“There’s no phone, no cards, no diary, no ID of any kind, sir,” she said.

“Robbery then?”

Tina produced a purse and opened it, “I don’t think so.” She slid a thick pile of notes from one of the pockets; twenties and fifties, fresh from the bank. “There’s a few hundred here. Why take the phone and not the cash?”

“Good question.” And why carry that much cash? “First thing, get her identified. Check missing persons and failing that, do a door to door. The chances are she’s local.”

“Do you think its natural causes?” Tina asked, bagging the sparse collection of personal possessions.

“I’ve got some questions.”

“She must have been stopped on her way home or on her way out and brought here by whoever took her stuff.”

“Yes, that’s likely, but what aren’t you doing, sergeant?”

Tina smiled, “Following the evidence, sir.”

“On you go, oh and Tina, find out who that is.”

The scene was visible from a busy road and there had been a stream of members of the public stopping to watch from beyond the blue line of police tape. Most people had paused for only a short time before being driven on by the demands of their day or the bitter cold, but one man had been there almost as long as Lewis.

He was in his thirties, tall, standing a head above anyone else, thin, fair and well dressed in suit and tailored coat. He could be press but he hadn’t touched his phone. He smoked, did not seem to notice the cold and watched intently. 

Tina saw who Lewis meant and went off to talk to him. She was a good officer and good-hearted with it, keen as mustard, awfully young and he was sorry not to be able to finish her training.

Laura found Lewis after supervising the transfer of the body to the morgue, “So Inspector, last case?”

“Looks that way.”

“Such tales you could tell of times now past.”

“Aye, I remember when all this were fields.”

“Are you sure about this retirement idea, Robbie? What on earth are you going to do with yourself?”

“I haven’t a clue. But it hasn’t been right since I got back, you know that. I can’t get to grips with the job anymore. Don’t give me that look, I’ve given it three years.”

They watched Tina as she made her way back, notebook in hand, “All those shiny new sergeants are going to be thrown to the lions without you to start them off.”

“I’m sure they’ll manage without me. I’m quite sure.”

Tina joined them, adjusting the cap she had covering her ever unruly black hair.

“He’s given me a name, sir,” she said. “Hers not his. He wouldn’t give me his.”

Lewis looked to where the man had been standing. He had gone.

“What do you mean he wouldn’t give his name? What did he say?”

“The deceased’s name was Margaret Church. She was a professor at Carlyle College.”

“An academic. One day one of them will die peacefully in bed.”

“And he gave me her address; she’s just round the corner. I asked for his details, how he knew her, the usual but he said he couldn’t help me any further.”

“Any indication who he is?”

“None, but I don’t think he’s just a neighbour; he seemed upset. You know, in a posh English sort of way.”

Lewis and Tina walked the short distance to the address supplied by the posh Englishman. No one was home, but a key from the deceased’s bag opened the front door of a two storey semi-detached house. Lewis put on gloves and foot protectors to take a look around while Tina talked to the neighbours.

He found post on the doormat addressed to Professor Church and it was certainly an academic’s home. Books lined the walls throughout and one of the rooms, the dining room, was used as a study.

Her area of expertise, not to mention her great love, seemed to be China and the shelves were stacked with books on the subject while her mantelpieces and walls displayed oriental art and souvenirs. 

He soon noticed that the desk and some shelves in the study had been cleared and there was no computer or laptop anywhere. He stopped his search when he found a kitchen window forced open. 

He met Tina outside. She told him Margaret lived alone and the neighbour she had spoken to believed she was single and childless. She was mostly in the house by herself but there was a brother who visited occasionally. Other visitors were Chinese academics who sometimes came to stay for a week or so and someone who might have been a nephew; a tall man with fair hair.

They left a uniformed officer to guard the house but, even with an apparent mugging and break in, they could not proceed with the investigation. Lewis was ready to bet his pension they were looking at a suspicious death but until natural causes were ruled out, Jean Innocent was refusing to authorise the resources for a murder investigation. So no SOCO examination of the house, no CCTV, no door to door and no victim profile.

He sent Tina back to the station while he drove into Oxford to visit Carlyle College. He let them know what had happened and collected the contact details for Professor Church’s next of kin; her brother, Daniel. While there he spoke to a few colleagues.

The picture he received was of a woman for whom ‘quiet’ was the most commonly used adjective. She was described as steady, diligent, long-serving and a respected expert in her field. The field was risk analysis in international relations (whatever that might be) but specialising as he had thought, in China.

In the last year or so she had taken on external consultancy work. Everyone he spoke to was hazy on the detail except that it occasionally took her to London and had seemingly dried up in the last two or three months. 

Of all the College staff, only the department administrative assistant was identified as a particular friend. This woman tearfully told Lewis that Margaret was the kindest person she ever knew but tended to be solitary. She had become preoccupied and withdrawn of late and the friend suspected money troubles. He recalled the cash she carried in her handbag and itched to get hold of her bank statements.

He had stopped for a coffee and a sandwich when Laura phoned, “She died of a cardiac arrest, Robbie.”

“So you’re saying natural causes?”

“I can’t be certain yet. Her heart was healthy, and she didn’t have anything else wrong with her which might cause it to fail. One thing though, I found a puncture mark in her neck, at the base of her skull, hidden by her hair. I’d say it was an injection site. It’s unhealed, so from just before she died.”

“Anything to indicate what was injected?”

“Not so far, but I’m going to rule the death suspicious to be going along with.”

“I owe you one.”

“Tonight at the Trout?”

“Ah, no Laura, not tonight. I need to get on with this.”

“Okay, Robbie. Speak to you tomorrow. I’ll have more by then.”

He got SOCO onto the house and Tina supervising a couple of DCs on the door to door, victim profile and CCTV examination. Then he drove to Milton Keynes to give the news to the brother.

Daniel Church was just home from his Finance Director job at a local business. He was tall like Margaret, with the same dark, auburn hair. His hairline was creeping back though and he had a tired air. His wife, Ellen, an accountant, sat next to him on the sofa, holding his hand.

“We weren’t close,” he said. “But she was my only sister and we got on well. She was always bookish; cleverest in the class, the first girl in the family to go to university.”

“Was she always at Oxford?”

“Yes, she did all her studying there and that’s where she’s always worked, apart from a few months here and there in Beijing. She was fluent in Mandarin, did you know?”

“Did she ever marry? Or have any significant relationships?”

“Never married, no and she’s always lived alone.”

“But she had a child,” Ellen added. “When she was a student; a girl she put up for adoption. Big to-do in the family because she was unmarried. The father was a student too, who didn’t want anything to do with her or the baby.”

“Still it was the seventies not the fifties,” Daniel said. “She could have kept her if she wanted to. Even our parents wanted her to and mum offered to move up from London to help out. Mags just thought she was too young to be a single parent. She was always practical like that. The daughter, Christine, Christine somebody, contacted her a few years back but I don’t think they kept in touch.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me? Any problems, disagreements at work, money troubles.”

They shook their head in unison, “Of course, she wouldn’t necessarily tell us if anything was wrong. You might speak to that lad James, she was close to him.”

“Who’s this?”

“She rented a cottage on a country estate in Oxfordshire one summer when she was writing one of her books. This would have been the mid-eighties. The place had an odd French name, I’ll have it written down somewhere. She made friends with one of the children on the estate. There was some kind of issue with his family and she took him under her wing.”

“She helped him with his education.” Ellen said. “And he went to Cambridge.”

“He went on to work for one of the government departments,” Daniel went on. “He got her some work recently.”

“Would this be the consultancy work they mentioned at Carlyle?”

“That’s it. I think it was with him in London.”

“Do you have a surname, an address?”

“I’m sorry, inspector.”

***

After the drive back from Milton Keynes, Lewis left the car at home and walked to a pub near his flat. He had finally got his drinking under control in the last year and kept it that way by not having alcohol in the house and coming here once or twice a week instead.

He felt bad for rebuffing Laura’s friendly overtures, but she knew he wasn’t one for socialising these days. He hadn’t really got the hang of people since he lost Val and he preferred to sit in this quiet local on his own at the end of the day.

He was getting ready to finish his second drink and leave when someone appeared at his table.

“Detective Inspector Lewis?”

He looked up at the low, well-spoken voice and found the young man from this morning’s crime scene. The not-nephew, he supposed; tall and pale and solemn. Had he followed Lewis here, or had someone given away his address? Neither explanation was a welcome one. 

“And you are?”

“I was a friend of Margaret Church.”

“James, is it?” He didn’t deny it. “Any surname?”

He ignored the question. “Can I get you a drink, Inspector?”

“No, thank you.”

He didn’t get one for himself either but took one of the seats opposite. Lewis planned to just let him speak; interviewing witnesses in the pub went out with The Sweeney and he needed to be careful, but the young man defeated him with his silence.

“Well? You didn’t follow me here for the pleasure of my company.”

James looked up. His expression was momentarily unguarded and Lewis saw he was trying to master his emotions.

“How did she die?” He asked.

“I can’t discuss the case with you.”

“Was she, I mean - was she murdered? What was she doing back there?”

“I don’t know, James,” he said. “Not yet. But we’re treating the death as suspicious.”

James nodded, apparently at a loss as to what to do with this information.

“Is there anything you can tell me that would help us understand what happened?” Lewis asked. “Anything at all.” 

He shook his head slowly, “It must have been random, a mugging or something. She was a good person. She didn’t have enemies.” He looked up in sudden revelation. “But Christine -”

“Her daughter?”

“Yes. She used to be a smack addict.”

“So they were in touch?”

He nodded, “But she’s in Coventry.”

“What’s her surname?”

“Mann. I don’t know her address.”

“We’ll check, don’t worry. Are you sure there’s nothing else?” The lad had something playing on his mind, he’d swear to it. Something he perhaps wasn’t ready to look directly at. He’d seen it in witnesses many times. Lewis took a guess, “You got Margaret a job, didn’t you? In London. Who was that with?”

He didn’t reply for a moment and then said carefully, “The Ministry of Defence, but she finished that job last year. Why? Are you saying -?”

“Is that who you work for?”

“I do work for the civil service.” Lewis noted the emphasis he placed on the words as if he were inviting him to examine them more closely.

“So why had she finished with her consultancy work?”

“I don’t know.” His expression clouded, “She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Didn’t you think that was odd?”

He looked up, “Yes.”

A few silent minutes later he stood, “I should go, I’ve got to get a train. Good night, Inspector. Thank you for talking to me.” 

***

The next day was another damp, bitterly cold day which Tina said would have counted as a heatwave in Swansea. He dispatched her to Coventry in pursuit of the Christine Mann lead while he spent a frustrating couple of hours on the phone. First he called Carlyle College who were surprisingly vague on the details of Margaret’s non-College work and then he telephoned the Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall.

He spoke to individuals of various grades, ranks and degrees of helpfulness. Professor Church appeared on no list of employees, past or present, casual or permanent and, more significantly, he could find no one who actually knew her, including the ‘East Asia Man’ who ‘definitely would have’ and to whom he was transferred four times. He was ready to give up having reached the end of his patience when the East Asia Man told him MI5 often used the Ministry as a cover and it wasn’t unusual to get mystifying enquiries like this. Lewis suddenly knew where the case was leading. He went to see CS Innocent to put in a formal request for contact with MI5.

“Last case, Robbie,” she said, not without affection. “There was no chance you were going to make it simple.”

“I get the feeling her death was connected to her consultancy work and I’m fairly sure that was with MI5.”

“Look at the daughter, first. An addict would know about injections if anyone would. If you still want to contact the security services after that, give me a bit more to bargain with than your copper’s nose and I’ll start the process.”

SOCO released Margaret’s house late morning, reporting that a break-in had taken place. It had, however, been professionally executed and was unlikely to yield DNA or fingerprints. They found no computer or mobile phone but other valuables such as TV and jewellery were untouched. 

Lewis spent some time thoroughly searching the house and the search was notable for what it did not elicit. The burglar had taken anything that might reveal personal contacts. There was no correspondence or diaries, even everyday items such as bills and statements had been taken. Only yellowing pages from the distant twentieth century were left in their folders and drawers. 

If any paperwork relating to her current employment or research had been kept here, that too was gone. He reflected that it must have taken several trips out to a car or even a van to remove all this material and yet the neighbours, curtains drawn and doors locked in frozen January, had seen nothing.

He had an appointment to meet Daniel at the morgue for formal identification of the body and the sky was darkening when he arrived. Sleet and heavy rain had been forecast and he was glad to get a message from Tina that she was safely back and would wait for him at the station.

Daniel had driven from Milton Keynes. The immediate shock of what had happened had worn off and he was full of angry questions but no further insights. He confirmed the body was his sister and over paper cups of machine-dispensed tea said he remembered a bit more about the Oxfordshire estate she had lived on for a while in the eighties. 

“It was Crevecoeur,” he said passing Lewis a slip of paper with the word spelt out in capitals. “I remember she left suddenly, before her lease was up. She’d fallen out with her landlords over something. What I don’t know.” 

Daniel was keen to get away before the weather deteriorated further and, when he had seen him off, Lewis found Laura. She remained unhappy with her findings.

“It’s all so inconclusive, Robbie,” she said, turning over the pages of her report. “There’s no sign of illness or injury and, if she was murdered, the killer left no trace on her. Her blood was negative for all the usual poisons and intoxicants. Not even a glass of wine and that’s more than you could say for any blood sample of mine. 

“There was just one odd thing. I found high levels of potassium in her system. Now, we need potassium to survive; it’s in lots of different food and when your levels are low you get prescribed potassium chloride. But at high doses it’s lethal and it is possible that an injection of potassium chloride caused her heart to fail.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I can’t be. When the heart is damaged, the body releases potassium into the bloodstream which makes it almost impossible to prove an overdose. Which is just one of the advantages of potassium chloride as a murder weapon.”

“It sounds like the perfect crime.”

“Indeed and my report will be correspondingly vague. Sorry, it makes you long for the elegant simplicity of a whack on the head.”

“Thanks Laura, this is beginning to make sense. And I shouldn’t worry about reasonable doubt. I’m starting to think this case won’t ever get to court.”

***

At the front entrance of the hospital, he saw a still, hunched figure leaning against the wall, smoking and watching sharp, needles of sleet starting to fall. He went over to join him.

“James Bond I presume,” he said.

James had acquired a fair fuzz of stubble overnight and was wearing jeans and a series of sweatshirts and jackets unequal to the weather.

“That’s very good, Inspector,” he said with the ghost of a smile. 

“What are you doing here? Are you still following me?”

“Is she here?”

“Aye, she is.”

He took a thoughtful last drag on his cigarette, “Did I just see Daniel? How is he?”

“As you might expect. He thought you worked in London. How did you come to be in Oxford yesterday?”

He crushed out the cigarette and flicked away the stub, “I couldn’t reach her on the phone, I was worried. Did you find out - , no, I know, you can’t tell me.”

Lewis glanced at his watch, “Do you want to see her?” 

He straightened, “Could I?”

Lewis took James down to the morgue and waited in the hollow silence with him while the body was again prepared for viewing. He went with him into the viewing room as regulations demanded. James stood beside the body for a few minutes, his head bowed, his hands clasped, as though he were praying. He leaned down to kiss her cheek before turning away with tell-tale shining eyes.

“Come on,” Lewis said. “Let’s go somewhere warm.”

James seemed content to follow him to his car and they drove to a café in town which was unusually good for parking. They found a table upstairs overlooking the ornate walls and courtyard of one of the ancient Colleges and watched the honeyed Oxford stone vanishing as the sleet began to fall; thicker, wilder and faster. 

Lewis ordered a cappuccino and finally got a bite of toasted cheese for lunch. He got the same for James who only warmed his hands on the mug. 

“In the dark time of year,” James said. “Between melting and freezing. The soul’s sap quivers.”

“What’s that now, is it Shakespeare?”

“TS Eliot.”

“My old governor liked a quote. I never knew what he was on about three quarters of the time.”

James’ smile transformed his face and Lewis was struck by an odd sense of connection to the man. Perhaps it was the memory of Morse that triggered it; that air of difference, of standing apart. 

“I ought to head back,” Lewis said as he finished his coffee, he was already late for the team meeting and his phone had started buzzing in his pocket like a trapped insect. “Can I drop you anywhere?”

“Stay for a bit,” James said. “You shouldn’t drive through this.”

He settled back down, unexpectedly glad of the excuse, “Maybe you’re right.”

They shared the silence while all around them people came and went, taking off and putting on wet coats and shaking out umbrellas blossoming with white.

“She didn’t look hurt,” James said finally. “Mags. I expected bruises or, I don’t know.”

“Do you know anything about potassium chloride, James?”

He looked as though he had received a blow.

“Be careful,” he said urgently when some kind of realisation had settled in. “You’re looking for a dangerous man.”

“I noticed,” Lewis replied. “A name would help.”

“He doesn’t have one.”

“Why won’t you help me?”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, for –, do you want me to arrest you?”

“I made a mistake yesterday, I put you on his track and that makes it dangerous for you and all of your team.”

“And keeping us in the dark will help us how?” 

James refused to speak again. He was staring at a list of numbers in his phone as if trying to decide which one to dial.

“James, talk to me.”

But he wouldn’t. 

“I just don’t understand how a sensible professor’s sensible life goes this wrong?”

He glanced up, “She met me.”

In the end Lewis gave up, leaving him in the café when the weather cleared and heading back to the station for the team briefing.

The victim profile confirmed what they already knew about Margaret’s biography. Born in North London, she moved to Oxford when she was eighteen. Her first degree had been in Philosophy, Politics & Economics and her career followed a steady, if slow, trajectory until her appointment as chair in International Relations at Carlyle College in 2000. Christine had been born while she was studying for her Masters. She had been adopted and taken to Warwickshire while still a baby.

Margaret’s name turned up in police records on only one occasion. In 1985 she reported to the police that she believed some of the children on the Crevecoeur estate were being abused. She had no direct evidence and her account was not supported by any witnesses so the case was closed with minimal investigation. The family concerned were influential in the area which no doubt had something to do with it. 

Tina reported on her trip to Coventry. Christine Mann was known to the local police because of her long history with drugs which she may or may not still be using. The police did not believe Christine was together enough to plan a murder or physically capable of committing one. Tina, having visited her at home, agreed. She had, in fact, spent the night in question in an Emergency Department. When she heard about her biological mother’s death her question was about the latest amount of money she had been promised.

“She was expecting five hundred pounds at the weekend, sir, to pay her rent, and that was the amount Margaret had in her bag.”

Christine was excluded as a suspect.

There was a hitch with Margaret’s phone records which the company were refusing to release, but her bank had provided copies of statements. Large amounts had periodically been taken out in cash, presumably for Christine. The account had fallen into debit a few times as a result until replenished by salary from Carlyle, as well as from the mysterious government department and a third source identified in the statements as R Stone. The government payments stopped in September last year but R Stone continued to be an occasional source of funds. Another bank was currently refusing to identify R Stone, or disclose his or her address. This too was the subject of ongoing enquiries. 

Finally he shared Laura’s findings with the team. 

“Potassium Chloride? That rings a bell,” Tina said getting on to her PC to search the net. “Here we go.”

She came up with an article from August last year about Dr Chen Yang, a researcher at the Chinese Embassy in London who had died in mysterious circumstances. A pathologist had suggested an injection of potassium chloride as cause of her death. 

“How on earth do you remember that?” Lewis asked her.

“One of my mates at the Met worked on the case, they thought Dr Yang had been spying for China and this was a punishment. It was going to be huge for a while and then there was an order from above to drop the case. It didn’t get any more press coverage either so he reckoned it was a massive cover up.”

Lewis took the information so far gathered to Innocent.

“A lot of the roads are leading to the Intelligence Services,” he said. “We need to know what Professor Church was doing for MI5, why she stopped and if her death was connected to the death of this researcher. I’d also like to ask MI5 if they know who R Stone is, because I’ll bet they do and that’s why we can’t access his or her bank statements.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Innocent said.

***

It was late by the time Lewis left the station and, as he drove through the chill, damp evening toward home, he contemplated the shape of the case so far.

If Margaret had been killed by the same person who killed Chen Yang, and it would be something of a coincidence if she hadn’t, then perhaps Margaret had also been caught with classified information. The mysterious R Stone payments seemed to support this theory, not to mention the abrupt termination of her consultancy work and the careful, precise burglary.

Would her daughter’s demands for money be enough to make her take such a step? He was coming to the conclusion they wouldn’t when he received a call. Margaret’s neighbour had phoned Tina to tell her someone was moving about next door. Tina was on her way to check the house and he turned the car around.

When Lewis got to the property ten minutes later, he found his sergeant and two PCs standing around one of Margaret’s book cases trying to get some sense out of an intruder. He sighed; it was James. He had got himself impressively drunk in the few hours since Lewis had left him at the café, found his way here and broken in. A process which seemed to have involved falling into at least one puddle. He had obligingly admitted the police when they rang the doorbell, before returning to the living room to continue a haphazard search of some kind.

“Hi!” James said with a delighted smile when Lewis appeared. 

Lewis knew, that in terms of the case, this was a break. Having the man in custody for trespass or forced entry might persuade him to divulge what he knew, or at least his flaming surname. But he also realised he wasn’t going to do that to him. 

“All right, you can all go,” he said. “I’ll handle this.”

“Sir?” Tina queried, “He broke in.”

“Yes, but this is his house. Professor Church left him the property in her will.”

James looked doubtful and he could see Tina knew he was bluffing, but, good girl that she was, she said nothing. He saw the three officers off, telling the PCs to report ‘no suspicious circumstances’ when they got back to the nick and assuring a baffled Tina she didn’t need to stay. 

When he came back into the living room, James was casting about for another shelf or drawer to ransack. Lewis steered him to the sofa and sat down next to him.

“So what’s all this about?” Lewis asked. “Looking for the secret microfilm, are you?” The sarcasm was lost on James.

“I don’t have any photos of her,” he said. “I don’t have anything of hers.”

Lewis produced a handkerchief so James could mop up the tears that had started to bubble up. “All right, lad.”

“Sorry,” he said, miserably. “I had a drink.”

“I can see that.”

“Did she really leave me this house?”

“I’ve no idea, I was thinking on me feet there.”

James stared at him. “Thank you.”

“Shall we go, do you think?”

James looked helplessly around. “I just need to get a photo.”

“You’re a daft sod. Wait here.”

Lewis knew the house pretty well by now and there was only one framed photograph on display anywhere; of Margaret and Daniel’s parents on their wedding day. There were no photograph albums or boxes of photos and he assumed, if these ever existed, they had been stolen along with everything else that might provide a clue to Margaret’s friends and contacts. 

He had however, come across an envelope of photographs in a bedroom drawer, possibly overlooked in the burglary because it shared the drawer with a jumble of scarves, gloves, purses and stray paperbacks.

He hadn’t placed any importance on the envelope when he first found it because most of the photos were more than fifteen years old with some black and white family pictures from the fifties and sixties among them. There were mismatched photographs of friends, of eighties weddings, of Daniel and Ellen’s children at various stages and other random photographs of the sort which might arrive with a Christmas card.

There was a lone school photograph of a suspiciously long-faced blond boy of about thirteen years of age peering anxiously at the camera.

Separate in their own thin paper wallet was a set of pictures from a trip to China in the nineties. They were all taken on the same day and Margaret was part of a group of, he would guess, academic colleagues and their families on a day out in a park. As he leafed through the pictures with James, who was concentrating hard on keeping his eyes open, he wondered if they were more significant than he had first thought. 

One person, a young woman with short, wavy hair and a frank round face, was frequently pictured with Margaret. They seemed to have spent the passing hours of the afternoon together, talking and sharing a shady spot beneath a tree. She looked familiar. 

“Who’s that?” He asked but James only shrugged.

He continued to search through the envelope until he found the photograph he had been looking for. It was a professional portrait on a cardboard mount of Margaret in her College robe receiving some kind of degree. Not undergraduate, she was a little old for that, perhaps her doctorate.

He gave it to James, “How’s this?”

James was pleased with it, “That’s how she was when I first knew her.”

“At Crevecoeur?”

His expression darkened, “How did you know?”

“Crevecoeur wasn’t a particularly happy place, was it?”

James shuffled the photo into an inside pocket of his jacket and huffed out a sigh. He levered himself up. “I’m going upstairs.”

“What for?”

“To throw up.”

“Right, carry on.”

Lewis went to the kitchen where cold air and rain were blowing in through an open window. Despite the police’s temporary fix, James had got in the same way as Margaret’s burglar. Lewis secured the window as best he could and cleared the pot plants the less stealthy of the two intruders had brought down in his wake.

When a bit too much time had passed he went upstairs. There he found James asleep, sprawled on the bed in Margaret’s spare room.

“Oh, for –.” He covered him with a duvet and left him.

He made himself a cup of instant coffee and went to the study, taking down a pile of folders from the top of one of Margaret’s bookcases. They had been left behind in the burglary, probably because of the age of the contents and their apparent lack of relevance. Notes, articles, letters, photocopied book chapters; aging and fading research from nearly two decades ago. 

He went through each one, gleaning what he could from the material in English, his head spinning with Chinese names and the obscure technical language of international relations until he came to a thin manila file slid into the sleeve of another.

“Well played, Professor,” he murmured to himself as he looked through it, “Well played.”

It contained three pieces of paper and was Margaret’s file on the murder of Chen Yang. The same article Tina had found was the first thing in it, and he had been right, Chen was the woman in the photographs he had just been looking at. Her black hair was threaded with grey in the later picture but beyond that, she had changed little in the intervening decades. Dr Yang was described as an expert in International Studies spending a sabbatical year in the UK. Next to where the article recorded the findings on cause of death, Margaret had scribbled ‘the Chemist’.

The second paper in the file took his breath away. It was a copy of a letter, also from August last year, from the Chinese ambassador to the head of MI5 accusing the service of responsibility for her death. It was an astonishing letter and Lewis could only imagine the repercussions for the relationship between China and the United Kingdom if it had been made public. And yet nothing had happened.

The last page was a printout of an email from a government email address thanking Margaret for her work and advising that her services would no longer be required. This was from October.

So Margaret not only died in the same way as Chen Yang, she knew her and had somehow lost her job over her. This he had to admit would support his spying theory.

He looked up from his reading as James came into the room, slow from sleep and the lingering effects of alcohol. He picked up the article and scanned through it.

“You won’t be able to catch him,” he said. “He’ll kill you first. I might, but you won’t.”

“What do you mean, you might?” 

James put down the paper and sat heavily in an armchair by the door.

“Was Chen Yang a spy who got caught?” Lewis asked. “Was she killed by this ‘Chemist’ instead of being deported or arrested or whatever usually happens?”

“She might have been spying, she might not,” James said. “If I had to guess, I’d say she was killed as a warning to the Chinese that the British aren’t a pushover.”

“MI5 do a lot of murdering, do they?”

He closed his eyes, “I didn’t think so.”

“Do you know who he is? The Chemist?”

He shrugged. Lewis slipped the papers back into the manila file. These disclosures had been pulled so reluctantly from James he did not expect to get another word from him, but he suddenly spoke.

“There was some talk at work,” he said. “That one of our assets in Beijing had been killed by China. No one would have wanted that to come out. There’s too much trade between China and the UK to jeopardise.”

“So no international incident, no questions in the House.”

“Right.”

“Just revenge. And was Margaret killed for the same reason? Was she selling secrets to get money for Christine?”

“No!” James exclaimed. “She would never do that. She would never.”

“But she wouldn’t tell you if she was, would she? She lost her job and wouldn’t tell you why and she was getting money from somewhere.”

James waved that away. “R Stone, right? That’s me, I gave it to her.”

“You’re R Stone as well?”

“It’s one of my work names. The one I use for real life; bank accounts, mortgage, nectar card. Only Mags still knew me as James.”

He produced a driving license and skimmed it across the desk to Lewis. It was in the name of Richard Stone. Lewis recalled the bank statements, “But that was several thousand pounds.”

“She needed it to pay for Christine’s flat and all her debts.”

“And why should you be responsible for her daughter’s debts?”

“I’m not, but it was important to Mags and I owe her everything.”

“For what?”

“She saved my life,” he said. 

“This is something to do with what was going on at Crevecoeur?”

Large hands went up to cover his face, “She got me out of there when I was eleven. Took me with her when she went.” 

Lewis couldn’t imagine how this would have worked; presumably the boy had parents, a school. You couldn’t just take a child and go. What kind of hell must have been unfolding on that country estate for sensible Margaret to take such a step? But James had not yet emerged from behind his hands and he did not have the right to ask.

“All right, Mr Bond,” he said gently. “How are we feeling?”

James slid his hands to the top of his head, “Even my hair hurts.”

Lewis got up, taking Margaret’s file on Chen Yang and adding the envelope of photographs to it. “Let’s go.”

“I can’t stay here?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

He got to his feet, “I can still get a train back if you wouldn’t mind dropping me at the station.”

“Stay at mine tonight.” Lewis said, handing him back his driving license.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s getting late and I don’t think you should be wandering off alone.”

James looked as bemused by the offer as Lewis felt making it, “Thank you.”

“Come on. Let’s get some food inside you.”

James let himself be guided out of the house. “I can’t guarantee it’ll stay inside me.”

“I’ll consider myself warned.”

There was a decent Italian restaurant with a takeaway service, not far from Lewis’ flat. Their minestrone, he had found, was a cure for many ills and he stopped on the way home to order a couple of portions. In the flat, they sat at the kitchen table and James ate cautiously.

“That’s really good,” he said.

“I found it helpful when I used to drink like that.”

“Was that when your wife died?” He saw Lewis’ expression. “I had to find you yesterday and I came across some articles. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“No, you’re all right,” Lewis said. “It’s good actually. No one mentions her anymore, not even the kids. I’m starting to feel like I’m the only one who remembers her.”

“Did they ever make an arrest for her murder?”

“No, they never did.”

“That must make it harder.”

Lewis nodded, “Well it never gets any easier, I have to admit.”

Though why he had to admit it, he didn’t know. He had been telling everyone he was fine for so long he had almost convinced himself.

“So what else did you find out about me?”

“Nothing much, just about ten thousand murderers locked up.”

“I was hoping to make it ten thousand and one before I retire next week.”

Lewis found himself warmed by James’ baffled expression, “You’re not old enough to retire.”

“Don’t be fooled by my youthful good looks. But I am taking an early option.”

He nodded. “I’ll be doing something similar.”

“Not worth trying to change things from the inside?”

“I think it’s me that would be changed. If it’s not too late. It must be good to look back on a career where you’ve really helped people.”

“What is it that you do?”

“When I’m not drunkenly lurching round Oxford? I mostly find out about people of interest; biographies, connections. If I’m lucky, something useful that might save a life but mostly just lies and gossip. Do you mind if I smoke? I can go out on to the balcony.”

Lewis cleared away the dinner things and, when James came back inside, he made tea. He couldn’t help mulling over the case.

“If Margaret wasn’t spying, why send the big guns after her?”

James stared into his tea, “Perhaps they thought she was, because she knew Chen Yang. She did, didn’t she? Chen was the woman in the photo you showed me. I should have spotted that.” 

“Or perhaps she was asking too many questions.” He showed James the letter from the Chinese ambassador.

“She shouldn’t have this.” He shook his head in disbelief. “This is Chief’s eyes only.”

“Could she have got it from someone at the Chinese embassy?”

“You’re right, that’s more likely. She had lots of contacts from Beijing; someone could have given it to her because they knew about her work for the service and that she was Chen’s friend.”

“And what would Margaret have done when she saw this letter?”

“She would have protested. I remember how she got when she was really outraged. I saw her nearly kill Lord -,” 

He caught himself saying too much again.

Lewis finished for him, “She was making a fuss about the way her friend was treated so they sent this Chemist to shut her up. Damn, murdering bastards.”

“She never said a word to me.”

“Of course not, she needed to protect you.”

James put a fisted hand to his mouth and closed his eyes. Lewis left him to gather himself, going to the spare room to make up the bed and sort out something for him to sleep in, a towel and a toothbrush.

When he returned to the kitchen he found him with his phone out tapping a message. He finished what he was doing and slipped his phone into his pocket. Lewis saw something had shifted, he saw a cool focus in his expression, as if he had come to a decision.

He got to his feet, “Goodnight, Inspector and thank you again.”

“James,” Lewis said, stopping him on his way to the bathroom. “You know you’re not entitled to exact vengeance. It doesn’t matter who you work for.”

James didn’t reply, just turned away.

***

Hailstones battering the window panes woke Lewis after only an hour or two of restless sleep. He resigned himself to another wakeful night and got up, heading for the kitchen.

He found James already there. He was sitting on the floor in front of the glazed balcony doors, leaning against a kitchen unit, his knees drawn up so he could occupy the awkward space. He was wearing the ill-fitting t-shirt and jogging bottoms Lewis had left for him and held an unlit cigarette in one hand. He had been watching the drama of the weather but turned as Lewis came in.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No, that racket did.” Outside there was an ice world forming and reforming, brightening the night. “You always bring the weather, I’ll say that for you.”

He heard a quiet laugh, “We do seem to be veering toward the apocalyptic. I was going for a smoke but not even I need nicotine that badly.”

“Go on, you can smoke, just this once.”

“Ah, no thanks, I can wait.”

Lewis crouched down and took the lighter from James’ other hand. He held it with his thumb hovering over the switch. James hesitated, before putting the cigarette to his mouth and dipping his head to let Lewis light it. He looked up and met his gaze. The gaze was direct and questioning and Lewis stepped away, shocked at the sudden, almost physical, intimacy of it.

He covered himself by looking for something to use as an ashtray. That done he sat down at the kitchen table and tried not to watch James smoke. He tried not to follow the journeys of cigarette to lips or to notice how he often closed his eyes for a second when he inhaled, or how smoke curled from his mouth, as if somewhere inside something had ignited and started to smoulder.

And there was something in him too, long dormant, stirring. He was ashamed, it was making him imagine a connection with this young stranger. He saw himself as James must see him; a sad, desperate old man in a flat full of pictures of a lost wife.

He said goodnight to a silent but watchful James and retreated to his room. No chance of sleep; he lay in bed listening to the storm. Instead of dying away it gathered force, splitting the room with lightning flash and thunder bolt. During a pause there was another sound in the room, the sound of breathing.

“Can I?” James asked.

He pulled the covers back and James got in. He was an impossible presence. Impossible. An instance from a daydream. But solid and human, his long limbs occupying all available space, his breath warm and his skin scented with the elements of this long day; water and fire and earth. He turned and pressed two swift kisses to Lewis’ lips and then rested his forehead on his chest.

“Is this all right?”

Lewis’ breath hitched as a small part of his brain wondered what he thought he was doing and the rest of him screamed for touch. His arm had gone round James, under the loose cloth of his T-shirt, his warm hand on the cool of the younger man’s skin. 

“Is it Robert? What do they call you?” 

He told him and James repeated it, whispered it and Lewis shivered.

“And which of your names?”

“James. I don’t know who those others are.”

His body started to take an interest and James too was responding; a silent exchange of secret names. It was an inexperienced fumble of mouths and hands and not just on Lewis’ part, but shockingly beautiful all the same.

It did not feel strange, when it should have felt strange, for James to fall immediately to sleep in his embrace. It was only wrong when he woke to the alarm and found himself alone.

James was not only gone from his room, he was gone from the flat, disappeared into the darkness before the mid-winter dawn had begun its leaden progression across the sky. Lewis thought this an understandable reaction to waking up in the bed of an elderly policeman you hardly know. But there was more to it than that. James did not leave because he was embarrassed (though how could he not be?). He left in the way he did because he did not want to be followed and he did not want to be stopped.

In the kitchen, there was a trace of tobacco in the air and a note on the table reading, ‘Goodbye Robbie.’ He was sure James would be seeking out the Chemist; using his skills and contacts to identify the nameless, faceless killer. He would assume Lewis would have no access to the place he was going, but Lewis possessed one piece of information James did not know he had. 

Lewis stopped at the station, mainly to convince Tina she had nothing to worry about when he suddenly disappeared in the midst of a murder inquiry but also to find out if progress had been made on his request for access to a MI5 contact. He was hopeful when he immediately received a summons to Innocent’s office, but he found her in the worst of moods. 

“The Margaret Church case is closed,” she said.

“Ma’am?”

“By order of the Chief Constable, we are to divert our resources to those cases where the evidential standard for cause of death is likely to be reached.”

Given the fate of the Met’s Chen Yang investigation, Lewis was unsurprised. “I take it this order was received after you put in a request to MI5.”

“Correct.”

“And exactly how does the Chief Constable know what the cause of death was?”

“A good question, Robbie, though I doubt one we can expect an answer to.”

“Ma’am –“

“You can stand in my office saying ‘ma’am’ all day long it’s not going to change my orders, or for that matter, yours.”

“I realise that, I was going to ask, may I take some personal time?” 

“To do what? You’re about to take fifty years of personal time.”

“Just a private matter to deal with, now the case is closed.”

“I suppose so.” She glanced down as her phone began to buzz. “As long as you remember, the matter is closed.”

He broke the news to Tina and the rest of the team, leaving them to speculate on the reasons for the case not going ahead. Accurately as it turned out. He diverted resources as instructed and, when he said he was taking a day’s leave, Tina knew he was up to something. He deflected her questions and pointed offers of assistance and was soon on his way.

There had been a turn in the weather overnight, the air was crisp and clear, the sky pregnant with unfallen snow. He needed to get on if he was going to make it.

***

He reached London in the early afternoon. James’ place was the basement flat of a large Victorian conversion across from a patch of common. He answered Lewis’ knock after a few moments.

“No, no, no,” he said by way of greeting. He ushered Lewis inside after making an almost visible decision not to slam the door in his face. 

His hair spiked damply from a recent shower and he wore a dark suit and shirt. There was an overnight bag by the door and he set the handgun he had been holding down on the hall table.

“How did you find me?” He asked as he bolted the door and followed Lewis into his living room. 

“You showed me your driving license.”

He looked dismayed, “I’m never drinking again.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“No,” James put his hand on Lewis’ arm, gripped it. “I didn’t mean - that was -. It was wonderful. And please don’t think it was some kind of regular occurrence for me. I’m always by myself, always.”

Lewis did not doubt the truth of this; he had seen the aloneness in him, recognised and connected with it.

“James, I didn’t find you to talk about last night.”

“I know, and you shouldn’t have come here.”

Lewis sat, uninvited, in one of James’ armchairs. The room was small and book-filled but oddly unhomely. There was a guitar leaning against the wall and a TV on mute, silently rolling through the news. 

“So what are you planning?” He asked.

“To make you go away.” 

“How?” Lewis enquired mildly. “At gun point?”

James attempted and almost succeeded in making his face a perfect blank. His eyes gave him away though; the rolling colours of an oncoming storm.

On the coffee table there was a laptop with a travel site open on the screen. By its side was a crushed out cigarette in an ashtray and half a mug of coffee.

“I’m gasping for a cup of tea,” he said, settling himself in. “If you’ve got such a thing.”

James glared at him, momentarily speechless. “I’ve got no milk. There’s some coffee.”

“Ta very much, a black coffee. Shaken, not stirred.” 

“Oh, you’re hilarious.”

James returned from the kitchen with a mug, putting it down on the coffee table with more force than necessary.

“Sit down for a moment, James, please.”

“I have to go.”

“So you’ve found him, have you? The Chemist?” James did not answer. “And you’re going to take that gun of yours and do what exactly? Kill him? That’s the plan, in outline?” He looked away from Lewis, the mask falling away slightly. “You know I’m not going to let you.”

He considered Lewis for a long moment and then dropped down onto the sofa.

“Good.” Lewis picked up the mug and took a sip. “This is very nice. Do you make it in a percolator or with one of those capsule things? You’ll have to show me how.” 

James gave a soft laugh of surrender.

“I was going to be a priest, you know,” he said. “I was studying theology when I was recruited at Cambridge. Can you imagine?”

“Aye, I can. You seem to be a man of principle.”

“I would have failed at that too. My faith isn’t strong enough. Mags said, do anything except become an academic. She said I’d lose myself if I lived in my head too much.”

“She knew you best, didn’t she?”

“She didn’t know I’d lose myself anyway.” James reached for his cigarette packet, though only to have something in his hand, to turn it and turn it about between long fingers. “She suggested the police.”

“You’d make a fine police officer. I daresay it’s not too late.”

“It is too late.” He said firmly. “It’s too late for anything.”

“So you’ve written off your future? You’re very young to be thinking that way. Though you’re right, once you’ve committed premeditated murder there’s no going back. Even if you don’t get killed or caught, if you run away overseas, you take it with you, it becomes your life.”

“I’m rethinking the escape. I’m thinking, if I survive, I should just give myself up. To you not them. It would be a more honest thing to do.”

“Is that all you’re rethinking?”

“What’s the alternative, Robbie? Tell me, I’ll do it. You can’t arrest him, there’s no way they’d let that happen. I bet you’re already warned off the case. If I don’t do anything, he’ll carry on killing and Mags’ death would be for nothing.”

“Her death was for nothing, whatever you do. And if you succeed there are plenty more of his kind to take his place. Are you going to finish them off one by one? Honestly, James you might know how to use a gun, you might have done a few training days, but I’m not convinced you’re the type to make a career as a vigilante.”

“But who avenges her, if not me?”

“Find another way.”

James threw down the cigarette packet and scrubbed his hands across his eyes.

“What’s the matter with me? I would have done it, I really meant to.”

“I understand the impulse.”

James looked at him in surprise, then nodded, understanding.

“But in the end, you’ve got to bury her and let her go.”

“She found me hiding in her shed when I was eleven,” James said, scooping up the pack again. “It was just after she moved into the cottage at Crevecoeur and she didn’t know who I was. Instead of sending me away, which absolutely every adult I ever knew would have, she let me help her unpack. Then she made hot chocolate. After that I wouldn’t leave her alone. She used to find me books to read while she was working, stuff that I’d never come across before like the Greek myths and the war poets. When I got bored she had me memorise little phrases in Mandarin so we could have these silly sing-song conversations. And then, well, she realised what was going on and got me away from there.”

“How did that work? Did your parents just let her?”

“I don’t know, it only seemed strange to me when I was grown up and understood how things normally work. I mean I was going to school that year anyway. My grandmother was paying as I was the only grandchild. And there was an aunt I technically lived with during the holidays. But I think perhaps my parents were worried for me, in their own psychopathic way.”

“She was a good woman, she was courageous, you’re right to mourn her as you do.”

“I just can’t help thinking she would be alive if it wasn’t for me.”

“This is so very far from being your fault, so very far.”

“I’m really grateful to you, you know,” James said. “For what you did, looking after me and last night. I’m not normally such a basket case.”

“I’ll have to take your word on that.”

He finally smiled, “Fair point.”

“It meant a lot to me too,” he said. “More than you can know.” He could not say that having James in his arms had given him the most peace he’d had in years. That James, over two swift days, had opened doors it had been his life’s work to keep shut. His hands clasped together and he looked down at them. “But I don’t expect anything more. There’s no fool like an old fool. Don’t feel you have to let me down gently -.”

“Robbie,” James interrupted. “Forgive me if this is the wrong thing to say, but do you think we could go to bed now?”

It was a different, longer lived experience, second time around. At first James was all nervous energy and Lewis more self-conscious than he had been before. But soon they found their own, steadier rhythm. 

James fell asleep, muttering a bit of nonsense but not waking as Lewis gently eased himself free of the warm confusion of limbs. He put on James’ dressing gown and went to look for the bathroom, locating it in an extension at the end of the kitchen. 

The snow had started, falling in specks of delicate white, undiluted by rain but not yet heavy enough to settle. He was watching from the kitchen, probably with a daft grin on his face, when he was alerted by a noise he couldn’t quite identify. Then he noticed a drop in temperature. It seemed as though somewhere in the flat a window was open and, after a moment, he heard a soft rattle from a forced window lock. The noise came from the living room and edging forward, he saw wet footprints traversing the floor.

Had James, like Margaret, asked too many questions and got himself noticed? Had he said the wrong thing and summoned a killer?

He remembered the gun on the hall table. It was still there and he could reach it from the kitchen. He had done some firearms training years back and he remembered enough to know his way around the gun, though little else. He checked, it was loaded.

He moved lightly until he could look into the bedroom. James was unmoving on the bed, asleep or dead, Lewis couldn’t tell, and a man was standing over him. He was unexpectedly ordinary looking; more heating engineer than Bond villain. But he was holding a syringe.

There was no time for thought, Lewis stepped into the room and called a warning. The man swung round, dropped the syringe and pulled out his own gun. Lewis fired.

There was a moment when the world ceased turning, when no one moved and no one breathed. Then James, woken by the noise, was out of bed and on his feet (not dead, not dead) and the man, the Chemist, staggered a few steps clutching the side of his head, blood flowing through his fingers, and fell to the floor. 

“Fuck,” James said, rapidly taking in the scene and going round to the other side of the bed to check the body. “Dead.” 

He took the gun and the syringe and laid them on the chest of drawers behind him.

He turned to Lewis who had not been able to move, “Are you-?” 

He took the gun from Lewis’ unresisting hand, made it safe and put it aside too. He checked Lewis for injury and, finding none, put his arms around him. 

***

They waited together, at first side by side on the sofa, James’ hand making soft circles on Lewis’ back until the noise in his head died away, until his heartbeat settled to something like its normal rate. 

Then they dressed in their suits and ties, closed the door on the bedroom and resumed waiting, wondering when they would hear the sound of sirens. The gunshot had been earth shatteringly loud to Lewis’ ears; he couldn’t believe no one called 999.

“Mind you, this is south London,” he said when no one did.

James wanted to take advantage of the pause to wipe the gun clean of prints and send Lewis away. If there was any music to be faced he wanted to be the one to face it. It was still a better ending to the day than the one he had envisaged. Lewis told him he had never run from trouble, or shirked his responsibility and he wasn’t about to start now. Anyway, he was not convinced James would survive any process of ‘music-facing’ without an outsider present. And he couldn’t have that.

Then James said, if that was the case, they should both go. They should go on the run, into hiding, the world was waiting. Lewis told him not to be so daft. He picked up the phone and called Jean Innocent.

“I want you to be my witness,” he said. “If I end up in a back alley with suspiciously high potassium levels, I want someone to know what happened.”

“Go somewhere public, both of you,” she said when she had listened without comment to Lewis’ abbreviated account of what had happened. “Send me a text to tell me where you are. Don’t talk to anyone else.”

They did as instructed. Without too much discussion they bypassed café and restaurant and ended up in a Clapham pub with doubles in front of them. They switched to soft drinks when they realised they might need to drive and waited out the afternoon, arm pressed to arm.

“Jean Innocent never did ask what I was doing in your bedroom,” Lewis said.

“If I’m supposed to be James Bond, it should be self-evident.”

The pub was filling with a post-work crowd when Innocent arrived. She was using an unmarked car with Tina Field behind the wheel.

“DS Field is driving,” Innocent said. “For her own safety and for the sake of deniability she’s been told nothing. And she’s none too happy about it, I can tell you.” 

“I can imagine,” Lewis said.

“Now gentleman,” she went on, having been supplied with gin and tonic by James. “This is the situation. I have been informed by the Chief Constable that nothing happened today. I have also been informed that the people lately occupying your flat, Mr Stone -”

“Hathaway, its James Hathaway.”

“That the people in your flat Mr Hathaway, were not in any way a ‘clean-up crew’. They were not taking away a dead body, a case of poison or, indeed, a selection of weapons. Neither were they destroying all trace of said items. None of that happened. In fact none of us were here at all. There will be no statements made, investigations conducted, mortems posted. Is that clear, DI Lewis?”

“Crystal, ma’am.”

“I would suggest, however, the people responsible for this big nothing are not entirely to be trusted. Would you agree?”

“Entirely.”

“So you might consider not being at your home or work addresses for a while.”

“Thank you, Jean,” Lewis said. She kissed his cheek before she left and wiped away a smudge of lipstick.

“We had such a nice retirement party planned for you, Robbie. You would do anything to get out of a social situation, wouldn’t you?”

***

They picked a location at random; a cottage in a remote spot on the South Downs, booked while Lewis drove and James telephoned. It was still snowing, now with serious intent; fat flakes which did not melt but wrapped a disguise of soft white around the landscape.

They stopped on the way only to pick up the key and a few days of supplies and if they had been an hour later the road would have been impassable.

Silence fell and definition was lost; the snow blurred the edges of the house, accumulating at the windows, sealing shut the doors. They built up the fire, filled the place with cooking smells and raised glasses in memory of Margaret Church and her friend Chen Yang. 

The day had the quality of a dream; vivid but impossible to grasp and, within this pure nothingness, Lewis could feel a shift, as if the world were adjusting, as if some careless discrepancy was correcting itself.

Beside the fire, James was still and quiet in his arms. He would keep careful hold of him while this world spun into the next so that when reality was asserted, they would be together.

 

End

 

March 2015


End file.
